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A sales mail arrives. An apt reminder entitled… What to wear this weekend. The joyous vision of dappled sunshine on a pastel abundance. The hues and hum of spring time opulence, a willowy cornucopia of flouncy delicacies and delicate pretties for the table. In reality, my mind was also considering What to wear this weekend i.e. thermals? Wonders to self why it’s below zero, lumping it down with huge splashy snow flakes. Considers an off the shoulder sou’wester?

Truth be told, it’s an idea snaffled from a soggy, droopy eared Easter Bunny who was recently sighted, stoically carting his podgy portmanteau of chocolate goodies to his keen and eager audience.

On the Saturday evening one swiftly lobbed together a medley of object d’virtu from the fridge/freezer/larder for an impromptu gathering the following day.

Few things better a bit of old-fashioned, spontaneous insta-fun.

It was time for a little preemptive mise en place. Adding squares of baking parchment or similar to a bun tin allowed the the procedure known as ‘slightly soften before scooping’. Returning the tin to the freezer hastens the build/cobbling the following day. No need for mushy ice cream in this instance. There will certainly be no time to rocher or quenelle when due to serve. Pistachio ice cream store-bought or hand cranked, in this instance.

Some fresh peaches, were lightly poached in honey and rose-water, (the unctuous post-poaching liquid then boiled and reduced to become a delicious icky-sticky drizzle). Baklava bites, a larder staple here, were further deployed, well most of them anyway.

White fine/caster sugar sprinkled onto a non stick baking mat was ceremoniously lobbed into a tray and then the oven to melt and become a dry caramel. Once suitably molten, burnished (ahem) and cast with chopped pistachios, it was left to cool and suitably snapped to become insta-shards of deliciousness.

(Fighting off the tea boy for the burnt bits remains de rigueur).

Assembled, and topped with a decent, doff and flop, of slightly sweetened and vanilla’d whipped cream. Dressed with the shards, bespeckled with pistachio, appropriately drizzled and baklava’d, a few berries hither and thither.

No recipe, no rules, just a medley of cold, crunchy, soft, fruity, sweet, nuttiness.